organicgreendoctor: its not fair

welcome to the organic green doctor blog

i am a family physician who was diagnosed with

early mild cognitive impairment(mci) amnestic type on december 21, 2010

this is a precursor to alzheimers disease

because of this diagnosis i have opted to stop practicing medicine

this blog will be about my journey with this disease

please feel free to follow me along this path

i will continue blogging on organic gardening, green living,

solar power, rainwater collection, and healthy living

i will blog on these plus other things noted to be interesting

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

its not fair

ITS NOT FAIR

life isnt
fair
is it

the other day as i was talking about my story with possible
alzheimers disease
as i was going over what happened to me and how i was
diagnosed
some would say its not fair that it hit mid stream when i was just
getting my stride
when i was really getting good at what i do
being able to sort out what was important as i assessed
each patients visit based on my knowledge of the patient
and their social situation
the workup and treatments were different for folks
with the same complaints

thats whats called the art of medicine
i had just gotten good when
bam i was broadsided
just redirected i guess

wish i could do a do over
but we dont get to do that do we

so as i was talking about this alzheimers graph that i have
posted several times i put myself on this graph
knowing that
i have some early short term memory issues i only notice
short term memory loss on neuropsych tests
abnormal levels of beta amyloid levels and tau levels in the spinal fluid
the possibility of an abnormal amyvid pet scan for beta amyloid in
the brain

throwing that on the graph you can almost predict when i will
start to go down hill in the next 10 years
hopefully the aricept (donepezil) is slowing that some

i dont feel sorry for myself
im active doing things i like to do
gardening blogging volunteering traveling seeing family and
doing those talks

i feel like my wife she says in the video at the top of the blog
we have a good life we take one day at the time

as i was telling the group all this and was telling them about
my friend who died two years ago with huntingtons disease
a friend who was recently diagnosed with cancer

i feel like im lucky as things could be a lot worse

i have time to enjoy life and time to extract what i can from it

as i was talking to the group a young lady listening
someone i didnt know
had tears rolling down her cheeks
her eyes were red
she was wiping those tears away as fast as she could

please dont feel sad for me
its not fair
i know
but
im luckier than most

the organicgreen doctor